And yet its viral clause, is by design, an attempt to make all code correspond to to RMS’s view of how software should be developed. By trying to dismiss it as “basic human decency”, really is not giving it, its due, since the viral clause is the single most controversial clause in software licenses in decades. It is why the the LGPL exists! It’s why pretty much every license that isn’t BSD exists. It’s why it’s called “open source” and not the intentionally confusing and too cute by half, “Free software”.
The viral clause wasn’t an accident. It was an intentional radical political statement. Even RMS says so. Not only that, but he takes it further to argue that the watered down viral clause, is the reason not to use the LGPL, a license he helped create!
